Tembo Mchanga

Tembo Mchanga

by: ELI ALI

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at "Attention: Permissions Coordinator," at the address below.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908020

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination.

First printing edition 2023.

Published by Mahogany Kweenz LLC

382 NE 191st Street, 924975, Miami, FL 33179-3899

Chapter 1

Cheray watched from the back seat as the garage door came down. Tears glazed her eyes, but she refused to let them spill onto her cheeks. It was pointless at that moment especially since it was the fourth move in the past two years. Her father was in the Military, hence the constant need to relocate.

She was way too quiet and reserved, even at her age. Life as an only child and being constantly on the go, had aged her mentally beyond her years. Move number two was one broken heart too many, so making friends had been pushed to the back of her mind. Keeping to herself proved to be so much safer and prepared her for the sporadic relocation announcements.

"Look at Little Ms. Lucky stretched out in the back", her mom winked from the front. The comment triggered the lingering sadness caused by move number one. It took her Amya away, the one that reigned as her best friend in the whole wide world. They'd spent all of kindergarten together and part of the summer. They were promised sleepovers and such, but after a considerable amount of time had gone by, Cheray concluded that she would never see Amya again.

The letters stopped coming, the phone calls tapered off, and the long-drawn-out game of phone tag had become down-right discouraging. Life saw to it that their parents remained too busy to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive for a visit.

By the end of her first-grade year, Cheray had stopped asking to see Amya. She decided to simply relish the occasional memory of her one-time best friend.

Her last attempt at making friends would be a little girl named Janita. Her trust took her as far as recess and lunch time. They even colored together. They got along well, only Cheray never took it past the school grounds. So, the night her mom had gone into her bedroom with brows raised and eyes wide with news of another move, she defeated the heart break. She would miss Janita, but at least, her chest would not bleed again like it did for Amya. Now, currently halfway through the fifth grade, she felt nothing as she watched her house disappear as they drove away.